ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt a. m. — DB Digi­tal Ventures, through which Deut­sche Bahn promo­tes new digi­tal busi­ness models, is inves­t­ing in two young U.S. compa­nies. With Ride­cell and GoKid, DB is focu­sing on inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and two offe­rings that meaningfully comple­ment the core rail busi­ness and could play a decisive role in the mobi­lity market in the future.

“Deut­sche Bahn was the startup of the first indus­trial revo­lu­tion. Today, we are brin­ging start­ups on board to expand our tech­no­logy exper­tise and deve­lop connec­ted, custo­mi­zed offe­rings for our custo­mers in the Mobi­lity 4.0 era,” said Prof. Sabina Jeschke, DB Board Member for Digi­ta­liza­tion and Technology.

GoKid brings child­ren safely to school
New York-based startup GoKid makes life easier for parents. The company opera­tes a carpoo­ling plat­form that gets child­ren to school, sports, or other recrea­tio­nal acti­vi­ties with each other safely and on time. GoKid has alre­ady orga­ni­zed more than 100,000 trips, prima­rily in the USA. Parents save time and money and protect the envi­ron­ment because trips are shared and bund­led. “We want to support DB’s commit­ment to new forms of mobi­lity with our carpools for school­child­ren” explains Dr. Stefa­nie Lemcke, CEO GoKid.

Ride­cell is the world’s leading provi­der of carsha­ring and ridesha­ring plat­forms, as well as for control­ling auto­no­mous fleets
Foun­ded in 2009 and based in San Fran­cisco, Ride­cell has deve­lo­ped smart soft­ware for car sharing, carpoo­ling and auto­no­mous fleet manage­ment opera­ti­ons. Over 20 million rides have alre­ady been arran­ged via the Ride­cell plat­form. “With our end-to-end inte­gra­tion, mobi­lity compa­nies and cities can quickly launch and expand their own car and ridesha­ring services in the market and increase their utiliza­tion” says Aarjav Trivedi, CEO Ride­cell. With Ride­cell, DB sees the poten­tial to offer all forms of use for vehicle fleets united on one plat­form — car sharing, ridesha­ring and on-demand services, inclu­ding auto­no­mous vehic­les. This would allow trips to be even more targe­ted to meet custo­mer needs.

DB Digi­tal Ventures will provide around €100 million in venture capi­tal by 2019 to work with start­ups to promote inno­va­tions and disrup­tive busi­ness models in mobi­lity and logi­stics that will bene­fit DB custo­mers in the long term.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is acqui­ring a stake in the opera­ting busi­ness of BTV braun tele­Com AG (BTV), a well-known equip­ment and service provi­der in broad­band commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. As part of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), the DBAG ECF fund advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG will acquire the majo­rity of shares in four opera­ting compa­nies of the BTV group. These will be sold as part of a succes­sion plan by the company foun­der and share­hol­der of BTV Thomas Braun, who will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for the manage­ment of the compa­nies. DBAG is co-inves­t­ing up to 4.8 million euros; in future, it will account for around 38 percent of the shares in the compa­nies. Further shares in addi­tion to the DBAG ECF (a total of 93 percent) will be held by the compa­nies’ manage­ment. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is sche­du­led for July 2018. The rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties still have to approve the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The BTV group is DBAG ECF’s fifth majo­rity invest­ment since it expan­ded its invest­ment spec­trum to include MBOs with equity invest­ments of ten to 30 million euros. At the same time, BTV marks the begin­ning of the second new invest­ment period of the DBAG ECF, or DBAG ECF II. The first invest­ment period of the fund (DBAG ECF I) was thus termi­na­ted prema­tu­rely after only twelve months. To date, 80 percent of the funds commit­ted to DBAG ECF I have been commit­ted. Further follow-on invest­ments are expec­ted to support the further deve­lo­p­ment of the exis­ting port­fo­lio companies.

BTV (www.brauntelecom.de) is a group of trading and service compa­nies that deve­lop, produce and distri­bute compon­ents for the cons­truc­tion of cable and fiber optic networks. It is one of the few full-service provi­ders on the market: BTV offers ever­y­thing needed to build, upgrade and operate such infra­struc­tures. This includes, for exam­ple, antenna sockets that are indi­vi­du­ally deve­lo­ped and produ­ced. The Group stocks a wide range of such and other compon­ents used by network opera­tors and service compa­nies. A growing service busi­ness comple­ments and supports the product busi­ness: Certain compon­ents in cable networks are beco­ming incre­asingly complex and require tech­ni­cal support in plan­ning, sales, confi­gu­ra­tion and installation.

BTV was foun­ded in Hano­ver in 1986. Around 40 people are employed there, inclu­ding in a rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment depart­ment: the company deve­lops and tests products in close coope­ra­tion with its custo­mers. There are further service and sales loca­ti­ons in Hamburg and in Wismar (35 employees), and subsi­dia­ries are also main­tai­ned in the Nether­lands and in Taiwan. BTV has grown stron­gly; in the last three years, reve­nue almost doubled to around 30 million euros (2017).

BTV is the fifth company in broad­band commu­ni­ca­ti­ons in which DBAG has inves­ted since 2013. In addi­tion, there were seven corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons of these share­hol­dings. “The market for these compa­nies is driven by incre­asing end-custo­mer demand for faster Inter­net connec­tions, which require exis­ting networks to be upgraded or newly built,” says Tors­ten Grede, spokes­man for DBAG’s Manage­ment Board, describ­ing the attrac­tive market envi­ron­ment for this invest­ment. This also includes the trend toward high-perfor­mance fiber-optic connec­tions right into the home. “Comple­xity is incre­asing — this will conti­nue to drive demand for BTV products and for rela­ted services.” BTV’s further deve­lo­p­ment steps are to include not only orga­nic growth but also the broa­de­ning of the product and service range through further company acquisitions.

“DBAG has a good repu­ta­tion and is a very expe­ri­en­ced inves­tor in our indus­try — making it the ideal part­ner to accom­pany our company in its further deve­lo­p­ment,” said Thomas Braun, a member of the company’s Manage­ment Board and share­hol­der, explai­ning the sale to DBAG ECF.

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests along­side DBAG funds in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are parti­cu­larly strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. With this expe­ri­ence, know-how and equity, it streng­thens the port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting a long-term, value-enhan­cing corpo­rate stra­tegy. The entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 1.8 billion euros.

News

Hamburg — Asto­rius Capi­tal GmbH successfully closes its third private equity fund of funds Asto­rius Capi­tal PE Fonds III with Euro 49m. As with the other fund programs, the focus is on buyout and growth stra­te­gies in the Euro­pean SME sector.

“With Asto­rius Capi­tal PE Fund III, we have again placed one of the most successful private equity products for semi-profes­sio­nal inves­tors in Germany in recent years,” said Julien Zornig (photo), Part­ner at Asto­rius Capi­tal. In addi­tion to a very successful approach to direct custo­mers, a number of private bank custo­mers and family offices were won as inves­tors. ACF III will be closed with a total volume of EUR 49 million. This repres­ents the most successful fund­rai­sing in the company’s history to date. “The signi­fi­cant increase in volume and the high propor­tion of repeat subscri­bers, inclu­ding in the alre­ady laun­ched ACF IV, demons­tra­tes the growing confi­dence of our custo­mers in our offe­ring,” Zornig added.

Attrac­tive portfolio
“With the target funds Deut­sche Private Equity III, Nazca IV, Cata­Cap II, Ergon IV and Stir­ling Square IV, we have once again put toge­ther a very attrac­tive port­fo­lio in ACF III,” explai­ned part­ner Thomas Wein­mann. In addi­tion to three coun­try funds, two Pan-Euro­pean funds were linked. This gives custo­mers access to high-quality Euro­pean medium-sized compa­nies. “The market envi­ron­ment with low inte­rest rates, vola­tile stock markets and high real estate prices is helping. Howe­ver, valua­tions in our market remain at attrac­tive levels, not only rela­tively but objec­tively,” Wein­mann adds.

Advan­ced invest­ment activity
“Over­all, we are very satis­fied with the invest­ment progress for our inves­tors,” states part­ner Georg Rems­ha­gen. Seve­ral compa­nies have alre­ady been included in ACF III, brin­ging the total number of invest­ments in the various Asto­rius fund programs to 50. “In ACF III, there were write-ups on tran­sac­tions after a short time,” which Rems­ha­gen sees as confir­ma­tion of the quality of the mana­gers identified.

Chal­len­ging inves­tor environment
“During the place­ment period of ACF III, many inves­tors such as banks and family offices once again had to make chan­ges due to new regu­la­ti­ons such as MiFID II,” notes Frank Rohwed­der, the part­ner respon­si­ble for struc­tu­ring. “We have contin­ued to be attu­ned to the needs of our direct custo­mers and part­ners, and are constantly opera­ting in line with the latest regu­la­tory requi­re­ments.” In addi­tion to private indi­vi­du­als, smal­ler insti­tu­tio­nal custo­mers and foun­da­ti­ons were again attrac­ted as inves­tors. “The trans­pa­rency crea­ted by Asto­rius and the insti­tu­tio­nal selec­tion process, which we are conti­nuously impro­ving, remains a crucial factor in this,” Rohwed­der emphasizes.

News

Düssel­dorf — For outstan­ding invest­ments and their clear commit­ment to North Rhine-West­pha­lia as a busi­ness loca­tion, Econo­mics and Digi­tal Minis­ter Prof. Dr. Andreas Pink­wart (photo) and Petra Wass­ner, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the state-owned busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment company NRW.INVEST, have hono­red four foreign compa­nies. This year’s NRW.INVEST Award went to the US online retailer Amazon, the British systems house Comput­a­cen­ter, the Japa­nese high-tech company Shimadzuand the Chinese auto­mo­tive supplier Yanfeng Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors.

“Inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors are of great importance for our coun­try. They are at the same time important employ­ers, drivers of inno­va­tion and econo­mic engi­nes. We honor these important contri­bu­ti­ons with the presen­ta­tion of the NRW.INVEST Award”, explai­ned Minis­ter Pink­wart. “This year’s award winners make a special contri­bu­tion to raising the profile of North Rhine-West­pha­lia as a busi­ness loca­tion in logi­stics, the auto­mo­tive sector and digitization.”

“Our award winners come from many diffe­rent count­ries and regi­ons of the world. They show that NRW can hold its own in the incre­asing compe­ti­tion for inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors, also thanks to an active sett­le­ment policy,” summed up Petra Wass­ner, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NRW.INVEST. “Parti­cu­larly in the area of future tech­no­logy such as digi­ta­liza­tion and elec­tro­mo­bi­lity, we want to convince inves­tors of North Rhine-Westphalia’s loca­tio­nal advantages.”

Last year, the number of new sett­le­ments and expan­sion invest­ments by foreign compa­nies in North Rhine-West­pha­lia rose to 421, crea­ting around 9,750 jobs, parti­cu­larly in the Metro­pole Ruhr and the Aachen and Düssel­dorf regions.

The winners of the NRW.INVEST AWARD 2018 at a glance:

Amazon: The US online retailer has massi­vely expan­ded its presence in North Rhine-West­pha­lia in recent years. Follo­wing the start of logi­stics acti­vi­ties eight years ago in Rhein­berg and Werne, further loca­ti­ons with diffe­rent func­tions were added in Bochum, Dort­mund and Krefeld in 2017. Amazon also opera­tes a rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment center in Aachen. Pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gies are being worked on there. Further loca­ti­ons, e.g. Mönchen­glad­bach, are being plan­ned. Amazon employs around 6,500 full-time staff in NRW.

Comput­a­cen­ter: The British IT service provi­der supplies complete compu­ter networks, inclu­ding soft­ware and hard­ware, to compa­nies and public-sector clients and is one of the top-selling systems houses in Germany. Comput­a­cen­ter has been loca­ted in Kerpen for 25 years, where cons­truc­tion of a new German head­quar­ters began last year with an invest­ment of 40 million euros. The company is also leasing an addi­tio­nal 29,000 square meters in a logi­stics center to expand its confi­gu­ra­tion and logi­stics capacities.

Shimadzu: The Japa­nese company is the world’s leading deve­lo­per and supplier of analy­ti­cal instru­ments, labo­ra­tory tech­no­logy and medi­cal devices. Foun­ded in 1875, it moved to Düssel­dorf in 1968 and has had its Euro­pean head­quar­ters in Duis­burg since 1987. The Shimadzu Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Center was opened there last year: an inno­va­tive think tank that combi­nes acade­mic-scien­ti­fic and tech­ni­cal know-how and deve­lops inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons speci­fi­cally for custo­mers. Shimadzu employs around 230 people in NRW.

Yanfeng Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors: The Chinese auto­mo­tive supplier specia­li­zes in vehicle inte­ri­ors and is a global leader in this segment. The product spec­trum ranges from center conso­les to door panels and instru­ment panels to intel­li­gent surfaces. Since the foun­ding of Yanfeng Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­ors in 2015, it has had its Euro­pean head­quar­ters with around 600 employees in Neuss, from where 15 other loca­ti­ons in Europe are mana­ged. In Febru­ary 2018, the company opened a new inno­va­tion center. Here, various disci­pli­nes are working on the car inte­rior of the future.

News

Milan / Green­wich, Conn. — L Catter­ton, the world’s largest consu­mer products-focu­sed private equity firm, and Ambi­enta, the largest sustaina­bi­lity-focu­sed Euro­pean private equity fund, have part­ne­red to acquire Pibi­plast, a leader in the design and manu­fac­ture of cosme­tics and perso­nal care plas­tic pack­a­ging based in Correg­gio, Italy. — The Bosi family, foun­der and current owner of the company, will retain a mino­rity stake. No infor­ma­tion was provi­ded on the terms of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1954 as a manu­fac­tu­rer of plas­tic pack­a­ging for the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try, Pibi­plast was a pioneer in the intro­duc­tion of envi­ron­men­tally friendly pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons. The company has contin­ued its specia­liza­tion in skin care and make-up through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and invest­ments in state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies. Today, Pibi­plast opera­tes four plants in nort­hern Italy and supplies more than 500 custo­mers in 35 count­ries. The company offers a wide range of products and custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons for the cosme­tics indus­try, from well-known global brands to emer­ging inde­pen­dent companies.

The company is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to conti­nue its histo­ric growth in the future. Sales last year amoun­ted to over 60 million euros. While nume­rous eco-friendly, natu­ral and orga­nic products are emer­ging in response to consu­mer demand, the cosme­tics indus­try has been slow to embrace envi­ron­men­tally friendly pack­a­ging solutions.

Pibi­plast was a pioneer in the first wave of compa­nies to move away from highly pollu­ting mate­ri­als in the 1990s, repla­cing non-recy­clable plas­tics with recy­clable ones with better envi­ron­men­tal perfor­mance. The company has also taken steps to use more sustainable mate­ri­als such as biopla­s­tics and recy­cled plas­tics. Pibi­plast has a clear lead over the compe­ti­tion in terms of the use of highly recy­clable raw mate­ri­als (63% at Pibi­plast vs. 28% market average).

Toge­ther with L Catter­ton and Ambi­enta, Pibi­plast aims to acce­le­rate its sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy by deve­lo­ping and promo­ting inno­va­tive pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons based on envi­ron­men­tally friendly mate­ri­als to meet incre­asing custo­mer demand for redu­ced envi­ron­men­tal impact. Andrea Otta­viano, Mana­ging Part­ner of L Catter­ton Europe, says: “Sustaina­bi­lity has incre­asingly become a driving force for change in the cosme­tics indus­try, and we have chosen Pibi­plast as a leader in envi­ron­men­tally friendly pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons. We look forward to working with Ambi­enta to support the company’s growth through heavy invest­ment in R&D and capi­tal invest­ment. We further believe that the highly frag­men­ted market pres­ents meaningful oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand Pibiplast’s product offe­ring through bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons and streng­then its inter­na­tio­nal presence.”

Mauro Roversi, Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at Ambi­enta, comm­ents: “It is a great oppor­tu­nity for Ambi­enta to help Pibi­plast tap into the growing demand for more sustainable pack­a­ging and posi­tion it for the excep­tio­nal future pros­pects of the cosme­tics and perso­nal care indus­try. Our goal is to estab­lish Pibi­plast as the undis­pu­ted leader in sustainable cosme­tic pack­a­ging. We are confi­dent that by working with L Catter­ton and Pibiplast’s outstan­ding manage­ment team, we can achieve our goals.”

Gior­gio Bosi, CEO of Pibi­plast, adds: “We are exci­ted to work with our new part­ners to take Pibi­plast into a new phase of growth and deve­lo­p­ment by expan­ding our product port­fo­lio and going inter­na­tio­nal. Both L Catter­ton and Ambi­enta have exem­plary track records in buil­ding leading brands and busi­nesses. Toge­ther, we will realize Pibiplast’s stra­te­gic goals while stay­ing true to our mission and core values.”

About L Catterton
With more than $15 billion in equity across six fund stra­te­gies and 17 offices world­wide, L Catter­ton is the largest end-user product-focu­sed private equity firm in the world. L Catterton’s team of more than 160 invest­ment and busi­ness profes­sio­nals works with manage­ment teams around the world to execute stra­te­gic plans to drive growth, lever­aging deep product and market cate­gory insights, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and a broad network of “thought part­ner­ships.” Since 1989, the company has reali­zed over 200 invest­ments in leading consu­mer brands. — L Catter­ton was crea­ted through the part­ner­ship of Catter­ton, LVMH and Groupe Arnault. www.lcatterton.com.

About Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a leading Euro­pean private equity firm with offices in Milan, Düssel­dorf and London. Focu­ses on growth invest­ments in indus­trial compa­nies that focus on trends in envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Ambi­enta mana­ges the world’s largest capi­tal fund in this sector, with more than €1 billion, and has alre­ady comple­ted 27 resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal invest­ments across Europe. With indus­trial and manage­ment exper­tise as well as global indus­try cont­acts, Ambi­enta actively contri­bu­tes to the deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio compa­nies. For more info, visit www.ambientasgr.com.

News

Essen — The Grün­der­fonds Ruhr, initia­ted jointly by NRW.BANK and Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr, has made its first invest­ment. As part of a Series A finan­cing, he has inves­ted around 2.6 million euros in Fascio­tens GmbH toge­ther with the VC inves­tor copa­rion. The Essen-based medi­cal tech­no­logy company has deve­lo­ped an inno­va­tive therapy for open abdomens.

“Fascio­tens is Grün­der­fonds Ruhr’s first invest­ment and a perfect exam­ple of young and inno­va­tive medi­cal tech­no­logy busi­ness ideas that can thrive in the Ruhr region,” says Dr. Aris­to­te­lis Nastos, one of the two mana­ging direc­tors of Grün­der­fonds Ruhr.

Dr. Sebas­tian Pünze­ler, Invest­ment Mana­ger at copa­rion, added: “Fascio­tens was deve­lo­ped by prac­ti­cing surge­ons for surge­ons and will signi­fi­cantly improve medi­cal care for high-risk open abdo­men pati­ents, simul­ta­neously redu­cing the length of stay of pati­ents in the inten­sive care unit.”

The new therapy “Fascio­tens Abdo­men” was deve­lo­ped by the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of Fascio­tens GmbH, the surge­ons Dr. Gereon Lill and Dr. Frank Beyer. They have deve­lo­ped a device that atta­ches extern­ally to the abdo­mi­nal wall and keeps the abdo­mi­nal wall fasciae in a state of tension. Thus, they provide a solu­tion to the surgi­cal problem of abdo­mi­nal closure after an open abdo­men. Pati­ents with life-threa­tening illnesses can thus be trea­ted with good success. In addi­tion to impro­ved pati­ent care, the use of this novel therapy results in a signi­fi­cant reduc­tion in treat­ment costs.
In the future, the proce­dure will also be used in infants with a conge­ni­tal abdo­mi­nal wall defect.

For the two mana­ging direc­tors, the invest­ment is a stroke of luck.
“The parti­ci­pa­tion of Grün­der­fonds Ruhr and copa­rion in the amount of appro­xi­m­ately 2.6 million euros enables us to rapidly advance CE appr­oval and the first clini­cal appli­ca­tion study, and to prepare the market entry of the first product,” says Dr. Frank Beyer. “In addi­tion, funding will also be made available for the deve­lo­p­ment of other products.”

“Toge­ther with the inves­tors, we have estab­lished concrete mile­sto­nes and are bene­fiting from the expe­ri­ence and network of our inves­tors in the still young phase of our company,” adds Dr. Gereon Lill.

The new therapy is also well recei­ved in practice.
Prof. Dr. Kriegl­stein, Chief Physi­cian of the Surgi­cal Clinic at St. Elisa­beth Hospi­tal Colo­gne-Hohen­lind, explains: “The idea origi­na­ted in surgi­cal prac­tice and is convin­cing in its simpli­city. Due to the seve­rity of the dise­ase, the treat­ment form meets an immense medi­cal need.”

Photo (from left): Dr. Sebas­tian Pünze­ler (copa­rion), Dr. Gereon Lill and Dr. Frank Beyer (both Fascio­tens), Dr. Aris­to­te­lis Nastos (Grün­der­fonds Ruhr).
Source: Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr/reprint free of charge

About the Grün­der­fonds Ruhr
The Grün­der­fonds was initia­ted jointly by Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr and NRW.BANK and is the first private-sector early-stage fund in the Ruhr region finan­ced by regio­nal indus­trial and finan­cial compa­nies. The fund invests in inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from the life science & health, digi­tal economy, chemi­cals & new mate­ri­als, energy & indus­try, and logi­stics & trade sectors. Prere­qui­si­tes are good growth and exit pros­pects as well as compe­tent manage­ment. As a multi-corpo­rate early-stage fund, it also opens up important indus­try access points for the respec­tive port­fo­lio compa­nies. www.gruenderfonds-ruhr.com

About copa­rion
copa­rion is a venture capi­tal inves­tor for young, German tech­no­logy compa­nies. With a fund volume of 225 million euros, copa­rion is making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to rapid and sustainable growth. copa­rion supports entre­pre­neu­rial vision with know-how without inter­fe­ring in the opera­tio­nal busi­ness. With many years of expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal and in buil­ding up compa­nies, the copa­rion team reco­gni­zes poten­tial and opens up new perspec­ti­ves. copa­rion brings the subs­tance, perse­ver­ance and crea­ti­vity to successfully master even diffi­cult situa­tions toge­ther. copa­rion finan­ces exclu­si­vely toge­ther with co-inves­tors. The focus is on the start-up and young growth phase. The fund invests up to €10 million per company, usually in seve­ral finan­cing rounds of €0.5–5 million each. Copa­rion has offices in Colo­gne and Berlin.

About Fascio­tens
Fascio­tens GmbH, based in Essen, Germany, was foun­ded in 2016 by Dr. Gereon Lill and Dr. Frank Beyer. It deve­lops inno­va­tive products for surgery. The foun­ders place parti­cu­lar empha­sis on direct cont­act with users in the clinics, which takes place on an equal footing due to their many years of medi­cal practice.

News

Munich, June 2018. The Munich-based soft­ware company Test­birds GmbH is conti­nuously on a growth course and recei­ves further invest­ments in the amount of seven million euros in a fourth round of finan­cing. The test­ing specia­list was able to win BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft and Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern, which is mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal, as new inves­tors. Exis­ting inves­tors Seven­ture Part­ners, Extorel and b‑to‑v have also parti­ci­pa­ted in the current round. The million-dollar sum will be inves­ted in the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion of the Test­birds team and in the deve­lo­p­ment of new technologies.

With 100 employees, offices in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries and an inter­na­tio­nal crowd of over 300,000 regis­tered testers, as well as an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, the Munich-based start-up, foun­ded in 2011, tests websites or apps for their clients for free­dom from errors, usabi­lity and accep­tance. “We are very plea­sed that we were able to gain the trust of two new inves­tors and convince them of our busi­ness model. With the invest­ment sum we want to further expand our team and further streng­then our posi­tion as one of the leading provi­ders in the field of soft­ware test­ing “, empha­si­zes Phil­ipp Benkler, foun­der and CEO of Testbirds.

The IT service provi­der counts nume­rous renow­ned compa­nies among its custo­mers, for exam­ple Deut­sche Tele­kom, Audi, Deut­sche Post, Henkel, Payback, n‑tv and Western Union. In addi­tion to crowd­test­ing, the company also offers cloud-based services for test­ing soft­ware applications.

“Test­birds has estab­lished itself as an expert in soft­ware test­ing in recent years and has conti­nuously expan­ded its busi­ness model. With our commit­ment, we are enab­ling the Munich-based test­ing specia­list to drive its inno­va­tions and operate even more stron­gly in the market,” says BayBG invest­ment mana­ger Andreas Heubl.

Roman Huber, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal adds: “Test­birds has deve­lo­ped impres­si­vely in recent years and can now count itself among the leading crowd test­ing provi­ders. The parti­ci­pa­tion of Wachs­tums­fonds Bayern in the current finan­cing round is inten­ded to help the company stay on the road to success and conti­nue its growth trajectory.”

About Test­birds
Test­birds was foun­ded in 2011 by Phil­ipp Benkler, Georg Hans­bauer and Markus Stein­hau­ser (photo from left to right) . In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Munich, the company has further offices in Amster­dam, London and Stock­holm, fran­chi­sees in Hungary, Russia and Slova­kia, and sales part­ners in Italy. The company offers its custo­mers diffe­rent types of tests for the opti­miza­tion of usabi­lity and func­tion­a­lity. With over 300,000 regis­tered testers in 193 count­ries, Test­birds is one of the world’s leading crowd­test­ing provi­ders. In addi­tion, the IT service provi­der relies on cloud-based tech­no­lo­gies to help custo­mers opti­mize digi­tal products.

About BayBG
BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH is one of the largest provi­ders of equity capi­tal for Bava­rian small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses. It curr­ently has a commit­ment of 315 million euros to around 500 Bava­rian compa­nies. With its venture capi­tal and equity invest­ments, it enables small and medium-sized compa­nies to imple­ment inno­va­tion and growth projects, arrange for company succes­sion or opti­mize their capi­tal structure.

News

Stock­holm (Sweden) / Tokyo (Japan) — Funds advi­sed by Triton (“Triton”) have successfully comple­ted the sale of Ovako AB (“Ovako”), a leading Euro­pean produ­cer of struc­tu­ral steel, to Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corpo­ra­tion (“NSSMC”), one of the world’s largest steel produ­cers by volume (as of 2017).

Triton acqui­red Ovako in the wake of the finan­cial crisis in 2010. During the seven years under Triton, Ovako’s manage­ment and board have worked toge­ther on a number of impro­ve­ment initia­ti­ves to streng­then Ovako’s posi­tion as one of Europe’s leading struc­tu­ral steel produ­cers. Key impro­ve­ment initia­ti­ves include clear segment stra­te­gies, manu­fac­tu­ring effi­ci­en­cies, employee safety programs, invest­ments in product deve­lo­p­ment, buil­ding a new global sales orga­niza­tion and intro­du­cing digi­tal tools to improve the sales process.

About Ovako
Ovako deve­lops high-tech steel solu­ti­ons for and in colla­bo­ra­tion with its custo­mers in the storage, trans­port and manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tries. Ovako Steel makes its custo­mers’ end products more dura­ble and extends their service life, ulti­m­ately resul­ting in smar­ter, more energy-effi­ci­ent and envi­ron­men­tally friendly products.

Ovako produc­tion is based on recy­cled scrap and includes steel in the form of bars, tubes, rings and pre-compon­ents. Ovako is repre­sen­ted in more than 30 count­ries and has sales offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Ovako gene­ra­ted sales of 921 million euros in 2017 and employed 3,040 people at the end of the year. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.ovako.com

About Triton
The Triton funds invest in and support the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and focus on compa­nies in the indus­trial, busi­ness services and consumer/health sectors.

Triton is commit­ted to helping build better compa­nies for the long term. Triton and its leaders are commit­ted to helping shape posi­tive change toward sustainable opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ments and growth. The 36 compa­nies curr­ently in Triton’s port­fo­lio have combi­ned sales of around €13.2 billion and employ around 89,000 people.

The Triton funds are advi­sed by specia­li­zed teams of profes­sio­nals in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Italy, the UK, the US, China, Luxem­bourg and Jersey.

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Bremen/ Beesten/ Düssel­dorf — Kloska Group sells the service busi­ness for CHP plants to consor­tium led by Ener­gie 360°. King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) advi­sed Kloska Group on the sale of its service busi­ness for CHP plants — by dive­s­t­ing the Thom­sen & Co. GmbH (Thom­sen & Co.) — to a group of inves­tors under the majo­rity leader­ship of the Swiss energy utility Ener­gie 360 Grad AG (Ener­gie 360°).

The Kloska Group, service part­ner and system supplier for ship­ping, shipy­ards, onshore/offshore, indus­try, cons­truc­tion and trade, was foun­ded in 1981. The group of compa­nies is head­quar­te­red in Bremen and includes nume­rous compa­nies that have comple­men­ted the service profile of the Kloska Group over the past years. The compa­nies’ busi­ness areas range from tech­ni­cal equip­ment supplier to engine spare parts service, combi­ned with their own repair work­shops, mate­ri­als hand­ling and hydrau­lics, to cate­ring, provi­sio­ning, tech­ni­cal and store deli­veries for ferries, merchant ships, cruise ships, rese­arch vessels and rese­arch stations.

The branch of Thom­sen & Co. in Bees­ten, foun­ded in 2007, bund­les the service busi­ness for CHP plants of the Kloska Group under the market-known name EPS (Engine Power Systems) and, in addi­tion to the sale of new and used CHP modu­les in various perfor­mance clas­ses, offers compre­hen­sive instal­la­tion and service services for gas engi­nes, CHP modu­les and combi­ned heat and power plants. In addi­tion to the usual main­ten­ance work, trou­ble­shoo­ting and repair work, the company carries out complete over­hauls of engi­nes and CHP modu­les in the company’s own work­shop or directly on site. The complete range of services is offe­red for gas engi­nes from 40 to 3,000 kW (elec­tric).

Ener­gie 360°, head­quar­te­red in Zurich, is a Swiss public limi­ted company that acts as an energy supplier for the city of Zurich, among others, and has a strong focus on rene­wa­ble ener­gies. In addi­tion to natu­ral gas and biogas, the company’s port­fo­lio also includes solar energy and wood pellets, as well as energy and grid services. Ener­gie 360° was alre­ady repre­sen­ted in Germany by a 50% stake in Ener­gas GmbH, which offers a simi­lar range of services to Thom­sen & Co, espe­ci­ally in southern Germany. The acqui­si­tion of Thom­sen & Co. comple­ments Ener­gie 360°’s port­fo­lio of holdings and expands its acti­vi­ties to nort­hern and eastern Germany.

After comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, Thom­sen & Co. will conti­nue to operate as an inde­pen­dent company. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant authorities.

Advi­sors to Kloska Group: King & Wood Malle­sons, Germany
Rüdi­ger Knopf (Part­ner, Tax, Lead), Rudolf Haas (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Tilmann Becker (Coun­sel), Laura Wimmer (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A)

News

Milan — Ambi­enta, Europe’s largest sustaina­bi­lity-focu­sed equity fund, has announ­ced a number of high-level promo­ti­ons, inclu­ding the posi­tion of Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer (CFO) and two addi­tio­nal part­ners. Daniele Gatti (photo) is now Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer (CFO) and Gian­carlo Beraudo and Fran­cesco Lodrini, previously both prin­ci­pals at Ambi­enta, have been appoin­ted with imme­diate effect to Part­ners appointed.

Daniele Gatti, who joined Ambi­enta in 2012, has been instru­men­tal in insti­tu­tio­na­li­zing the company over the past six years. He played a signi­fi­cant role in two successful fund raisings as well as the deve­lo­p­ment of Ambienta’s best prac­tice guide­lines for report­ing to regu­la­tors, inves­tors, as well as ESG issues. In addi­tion, Daniele Gatti has been invol­ved in the closing of six successful secon­dary tran­sac­tions and two co-invest­ment tran­sac­tions since joining Ambi­enta from the ‘Corpo­rate Finance and Tran­sac­tion Services’ prac­tice of the inter­na­tio­nal audit firm EY.

Gian­carlo Beraudo has been invol­ved in seve­ral Ambi­enta invest­ments since joining the company (2010). These include machine vision solu­ti­ons provi­der Lake­sight Tech­no­lo­gies, offshore services provi­der Foun­dO­cean Group, and indus­trial cooling systems company SPIG. Before his time at
Ambi­enta, Gian­carlo Beraudo spent three years at Rhône Capi­tal, an invest­ment firm focu­sed on mid-sized compa­nies in London, and two years at Bain & Company’s Milan office.

Fran­cesco Lodrini has been with Ambi­enta for seven years and has been instru­men­tal in seve­ral successful invest­ments. These include the manu­fac­tu­rer of profes­sio­nal clea­ning equip­ment IP Clea­ning, the specialty chemi­cals company
Calucem and the produ­cer of hydrau­lic compon­ents Safim. Prior to Ambi­enta, Fran­cesco Lodrini worked for three years at Barclays PE (now Equis­tone) and four years in London at Gold­man Sachs and Moni­tor Group.

The promo­ti­ons follow Ambienta’s successful start to 2018; for exam­ple, this year saw the sale of Oskar Nolte, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of envi­ron­men­tally friendly wood varnish systems, and the closing of the third fund at its maxi­mum limit of €635 million after less than three months of active marke­ting. The origi­nal goal
was 500 million euros.

Nino Tron­chetti Provera, Mana­ging Part­ner at Ambi­enta, adds: “We are plea­sed to announce the appoint­ment of Daniele Gatti as CFO and welcome Gian­carlo Beraudo and Fran­cesco Lodrini as part­ners at Ambi­enta. These well-deser­ved promo­ti­ons are the result of your valued contri­bu­ti­ons to the success of our company and the
Evidence of their hard work and profes­sio­nal exper­tise. At Ambi­enta, we view syste­ma­tic employee coaching and deve­lo­p­ment as inte­gral compon­ents of our company’s growth trajectory.”

Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a leading Euro­pean private equity firm with offices in Milan, Düssel­dorf and London. Focu­ses on growth invest­ments in indus­trial compa­nies that focus on trends in envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Ambi­enta mana­ges the world’s largest capi­tal fund in this sector, with more than €1 billion
sector and has alre­ady comple­ted 26 invest­ments in resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion across Europe. With indus­trial and manage­ment exper­tise as well as global indus­try cont­acts, Ambi­enta actively contri­bu­tes to the deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio compa­nies. www.ambientasgr.com.

News

Egels­bach / Munich — Funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer kapi­tal (“Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capi­tal”) acquire a majo­rity stake in Murnauer Marken­ver­trieb GmbH, based in Egels­bach near Frank­furt am Main. The company deve­lops and distri­bu­tes medi­cal, natur­opa­thic and cosme­tic products, dental care prepa­ra­ti­ons and nutri­tio­nal or dietary supple­ments. The seller of the shares is Colo­gne-based FETTE Pharma AG, a family holding company headed by Tamar Ving­ron and her brot­her Henry Dawi­do­wicz, which will conti­nue to hold a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. Mr. Dawi­do­wicz will conti­nue to manage Murnauer’s busi­ness as CEO — along­side Ms. Henrike Schick as CMO and Mr. Tilo Beer­baum as COO.

Successful with brands such as PERLWEISS, Salt­house and Dermasel
FETTEPharma has been successfully repre­sen­ted on the German market for over 40 years and has specia­li­zed in products using the unique active ingre­di­ent Dead Sea salt for thera­peu­tic and cosme­tic appli­ca­ti­ons since 1976 — inclu­ding brands such as “Derma­Sel” and “Salt­house”. Foun­ded around 30 years ago, Murnauer Marken­ver­trieb GmbH has been part of the FETTE Pharma Group since 2012 and distri­bu­tes its nume­rous medi­cal, cosme­tic and well­ness products for phar­macies, food retail­ers and drugs­to­res. In addi­tion, the company is successful with well-known brands such as “PERLWEISS” (teeth whitening products), “Murnauer’s Bach flowers” and “Früh­mes­ner” (natu­ral medi­cine and natu­ral cosme­tics lines) as well as “Murnauer’s crys­tal deodo­rant” in the afore­men­tio­ned sales chan­nels. The steadily growing product port­fo­lio with its own and licen­sed brands has been among the leaders in the respec­tive product segments for deca­des and focu­ses on premium quality as well as valuable and well-tole­ra­ted ingredients.

Focus on growth in highly attrac­tive market environment
“I am plea­sed to have found the ideal part­ner in Bregal, which will support Murnauer’s successful course not only with capi­tal strength, but also with the neces­sary sensi­ti­vity to our tradi­tion and corpo­rate values, as well as with profound know-how and networ­king in the health­care market,” explains Henry Dawi­do­wicz, Mana­ging Part­ner of Murnauer. Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal is itself part of a family busi­ness built up over gene­ra­ti­ons and accom­pa­nies medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land of various indus­tries in their deve­lo­p­ment within the frame­work of long-term invest­ments. Toge­ther with the manage­ment and the employees, Bregal now wants to conti­nue the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of Murnauer, open up new markets and expand the product port­fo­lio. Acqui­si­ti­ons of suita­ble brands are also opti­ons in the new stra­tegy. “The trend towards healthy, sustainable nutri­tion, natu­ral cosme­tics as well as alter­na­tive medi­cine conti­nues unstopp­ably — in this envi­ron­ment, a supplier as excel­lently posi­tio­ned in the market and as renow­ned as Murnauer has the best oppor­tu­ni­ties for further deve­lo­p­ment,” says Florian Schick, Chair­man of the Manage­ment Board at Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal. “We are very exci­ted to lead Murnauer into the next phase of growth with Henry Dawi­do­wicz and the entire team.”

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the sale price or other details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the usual regu­la­tory approval.

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital
Bregal entre­pre­neu­rial capi­tal is part of a family busi­ness built over gene­ra­ti­ons. The focus is on invest­ments that are open to long-term commit­ments and inde­pen­dent of deve­lo­p­ments on the finan­cial markets. Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal iden­ti­fies compa­nies that have strong manage­ment teams and are conside­red market leaders or “hidden cham­pi­ons” in their respec­tive segments. Thanks to flexi­ble finan­cing and tran­sac­tion struc­tures, both mino­rity and majo­rity share­hol­dings are targe­ted. In doing so, Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal is able to sensi­tively and result-orien­tedly design even complex indus­trial spin-offs, manage­ment buy-outs or succes­sion situa­tions. Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal stri­ves to support compa­nies in incre­asing their sales and profi­ta­bi­lity in a sustainable manner and accom­pa­nies them with capi­tal, long-stan­ding finan­cing exper­tise and a broad network of entre­pre­neurs and indus­try experts. www.bregal.de

About Murnauer Markenvertrieb
Murnauer Marken­ver­trieb GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Egels­bach near Frankfurt/Main, has been deve­lo­ping and marke­ting medi­cal and cosme­tic products, dental care prepa­ra­ti­ons, natur­opa­thic special­ties, and food and nutri­tio­nal supple­ments for 25 years. The steadily growing product port­fo­lio with own and licen­sed brands has been among the leaders in the respec­tive product segments for deca­des. The company relies on the active prin­ci­ples of nature in combi­na­tion with modern know-how. www.murnauers.de

News

Altdorf/ Waregem (Belgium) - Andlin­ger & Company announ­ced its inten­tion to sell Suspa GmbH to the private invest­ment arm of Belgian entre­pre­neur Pascal Vanhalst. Howe­ver, the tran­sac­tion is subject to the appr­oval of the German anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The appr­oval is expec­ted by the end of June. Pascal Vanhalst is head of the Belgian TVH Group, a global manu­fac­tu­rer of spare parts and access­ories for fork­lift trucks.

Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed the share­hol­ders of SUSPA GmbH on the sale of the company to its new owner Pascal Vanhalst.

SUSPA GmbH, based in Altdorf near Nurem­berg, is one of the largest suppli­ers of gas springs, hydrau­lic dampers, fric­tion dampers and energy absor­bers, height adjus­t­ment systems and crash manage­ment systems. The products are used world­wide in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, in mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, in the furni­ture indus­try, in house­hold appli­ances, in medi­cal tech­no­logy and in the consu­mer goods indus­try. In addi­tion to the plants in Altdorf and Sulz­bach-Rosen­berg in Germany, SUSPA GmbH has further plants in the Czech Repu­blic, the USA, China and India.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team, led by part­ner Dr. Alfred Koss­mann (Frankfurt‑M&A), included coun­sel Dr. Anders Kraft (Frank­furt-Tax) and Dr. Mathias Stöcker (Frank­furt-Anti­trust) as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Aliresa Fatemi, Sven Opper­mann, Evelin Moini (all Frankfurt‑M&A) and Odilo Wall­ner (Frank­furt-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized companies.

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Pfäf­fi­kon (Switzerland)/Frankfurt — Swiss IT Secu­rity AG, a company of the Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners inves­tor group, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the German IT company Expert­Cir­cle GmbH. The group, which opera­tes in the field of IT secu­rity, is thus further estab­li­shing itself in Germany.

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners was compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by a Bryan Cave Leigh­ton Pais­ner M&A team in Frank­furt led by Frank­furt Mana­ging Part­ner Dr. Tobias Fenck. BCLP had alre­ady advi­sed Ufenau on the acqui­si­tion of Wies­ba­den-based IT service provi­der alpha­Bit by Swiss IT Secu­rity in Janu­ary 2018.

Expert­Cir­cle, with loca­ti­ons in Mogen­dorf (head­quar­ters) and Bonn, is a Germany-wide IT company in the field of IT secu­rity and compli­ance for IT high secu­rity custo­mers. In parti­cu­lar, the company offers consul­ting and services with a focus on mana­ged services and cloud & enter­prise secu­rity. Expert­Cir­cle employs over 40 people and serves both private and public sector companies.

For Swiss IT Secu­rity, the majo­rity stake in Expert­Cir­cle is alre­ady the third acqui­si­tion within 8 months, follo­wing the take­over of execure in Octo­ber 2017 and alpha­Bit in Janu­ary 2018. The acqui­si­ti­ons have greatly expan­ded the Group’s market posi­tion in the DACH region. The current group is plan­ning sales of over CHF 30 million Swiss francs for 2018 and employs more than 200 people. Growth is to be further promo­ted in the coming months through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in order to bene­fit from far-reaching synergies.

Swiss IT Secu­rity is curr­ently in talks with nume­rous compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land with a view to further expan­ding the IT Secu­rity Group.

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners
Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is a Swiss-based inves­tor group focu­sed on majo­rity invest­ments in service compa­nies in the D/A/CH region active in the Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Life­style, Health­care and Finan­cial Services sectors. Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is regu­larly advi­sed on its tran­sac­tions by the team led by BCLP part­ner Dr. Tobias Fenck.

Advi­sors to Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners: Bryan Cave Leigh­ton Pais­ner, Frankfurt
Dr. Tobias Fenck, Mana­ging Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A, Private Equity)
Chris­tian Müller, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A, Private Equity)
Markus Beyer, Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A, Private Equity)
Michael Magotsch, Of Coun­sel (Labor Law)
Domi­nik Weiss, Coun­sel (IP/IT)

About Bryan Cave Leigh­ton Pais­ner LLP
Bryan Cave Leigh­ton Pais­ner LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness law firm with 1400 lawy­ers in 32 offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The fully inte­gra­ted global law firm offers its clients compre­hen­sive legal advice when­ever and where­ver it is needed, with prac­tice and indus­try teams with excel­lent inter­na­tio­nal networks. In Germany, Bryan Cave advi­ses Leigh­ton Pais­ner with offices in Frank­furt am Main and Hamburg, parti­cu­larly in the areas of M&A, real estate law, banking and finan­cing law, liti­ga­tion as well as private equity and venture capi­tal. With a clear focus on inno­va­tive advi­sory services and long-term client rela­ti­onships, Bryan Cave Leigh­ton Pais­ner provi­des world-class service to its clients as a global team.

News

Mannheim/Munich — IMAP advi­ses Krup­pert Hotel-Miet­wä­sche-Service on the sale of its majo­rity stake to Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners. The buy&build plat­form Lava­tio GmbH of the Swiss invest­ment company Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­res a majo­rity stake in the hotel rental linen service Krup­pert in Hünfeld near Fulda.

Krup­pert is an estab­lished service company, active in the field of rental and washing of texti­les. Since its foun­da­tion in 1974, the still family-run company has deve­lo­ped into a full-service provi­der for indus­trial laun­dry and has one of the most modern indus­trial laun­d­ries in Germany. Today, Krup­pert employs 115 people and has a sister company in Switz­er­land in addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Hünfeld.

As a one-stop-shop supplier, Krup­pert offers a highly effi­ci­ent port­fo­lio of services inclu­ding consul­ting services from a single source with the rental and washing of texti­les for hotels, restau­rants and cate­ring compa­nies (HoReCa). Toge­ther with more than 50 inde­pen­dent part­ners, the company serves a broadly diver­si­fied custo­mer port­fo­lio of over 600 custo­mers in Germany and Switz­er­land, inclu­ding nume­rous well-known hotel chains.

“I am very plea­sed that with Ufenau we have found an expe­ri­en­ced and finan­ci­ally strong part­ner for further growth for our fast-growing family busi­ness. I am sure that through stra­te­gi­cally important acqui­si­ti­ons we can toge­ther build a leading group in the HoReCa segment,” says Frank Krup­pert, mana­ging direc­tor and owner of the group.

“The growing hotel market with an incre­asing outsour­cing and conso­li­da­tion trend forms an ideal start­ing point for Ufenau’s buy-&-build stra­tegy. Toge­ther with Frank Krup­pert, we want to use the know-how and exper­tise of the team to jointly drive the growth of the group,” adds Ralf Flore (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Ufenau.

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners
Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is a Swiss inves­tor group based on Lake Zurich. Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners focu­ses on majo­rity invest­ments in service compa­nies in Switz­er­land, Germany and Austria that are active in the busi­ness services, educa­tion & life­style, health­care and finan­cial services sectors. With an exten­sive circle of renow­ned and expe­ri­en­ced indus­try part­ners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners pursues an active value-added invest­ment approach at eye level with entrepreneurs.

News

Wetz­lar — The merger of Wetz­lar­druck GmbH and Gieße­ner Anzei­ger Verlags GmbH, which belongs to the VRM Group, crea­tes the daily news­pa­per publisher with the highest sales and circu­la­tion in Central Hesse. Gleiss Lutz advi­sed Mainz-based VRM Holding GmbH & Co. KG, one of Germany’s widest-reach regio­nal media houses, on its invest­ment in the new company. In addi­tion to the VRM Group, Schnitz­ler Verlags- und Kinne Betei­li­gungs-GmbH, based in Wetz­lar, is also a share­hol­der. With this invest­ment, VRM is expan­ding its invol­vement in the media market in Central Hesse and further deve­lo­ping its service struc­ture there.

VRM, based in Mainz, reaches nearly one million readers with its 28 daily news­pa­pers in the Rhine-Main region. The asso­cia­ted Gieße­ner Anzei­ger Group alone achie­ves a daily reach of around 140,000 readers with its daily news­pa­pers, plus adver­ti­sing papers for Central Hesse with a weekly circu­la­tion of around 500,000 copies. VRM also reaches around 1.6 million unique users and over 485,000 social media users.

Zeitungs­gruppe Lahn Dill/Wetzlardruck GmbH is the leading regio­nal media company in western Hesse. The news­pa­per group publishes various regio­nal daily news­pa­pers, which toge­ther reach almost 180,000 readers. The news­pa­per group also publishes two adver­ti­sing news­pa­pers, each with a circu­la­tion of 150,000 copies. The joint Inter­net portal www.mittelhessen.de and the news app [m]-news provide constantly updated infor­ma­tion. With over 4 million page views per month, the portal and app reach more than 350,000 unique users.

Advi­sors to VRM Group: Gleiss Lutz
A Gleiss Lutz team led by Dr. Detlef Bauer (Part­ner, Lead, Corporate/M&A) and Dr. Wolf­gang Bosch (Part­ner, Anti­trust, both Frank­furt) provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to VRM on the transaction.

News

Paris — Ardian, a world-leading private invest­ment house, announ­ces the arran­ge­ment of a unitran­che finan­cing faci­lity to support Naxi­cap Part­ners’ acqui­si­tion of Euro­pean Cargo Services (“ECS”), a world leading Global Gene­ral Sales Agent, mana­ging 900k tonnes of air cargo on behalf of airlines, repre­sen­ting an annual sales volume of over €1bn. The unitran­che package will also include a dedi­ca­ted commit­ted acqui­si­tion faci­lity to support the growth of the Company and finance future build ups.

Foun­ded in 1998 in Paris, ECS Group has built an effi­ci­ent world­wide network of 137 offices across 47 count­ries, with over 1,000 staff working as a fully inte­gra­ted orga­niza­tion. ECS is a stra­te­gic part­ner for airlines and as their exclu­sive repre­sen­ta­tive, markets and mana­ges even their most complex cargo requirements.

Its global foot­print is the product of both orga­nic and exter­nal growth, resul­ting in a dense global network, with major recent acqui­si­ti­ons such as AVS in Asia (2016) and ExpAir in Canada (2017) streng­thening ECS’s posi­tion in markets with strong growth potential.

In a market ripe for conso­li­da­tion, offe­ring a strong pool of build-up oppor­tu­ni­ties, the Company intends to pursue an active stra­tegy of acqui­si­ti­ons, gene­ra­ting signi­fi­cant commer­cial syner­gies, while conti­nuing to extend the range of services offe­red to clients, provi­ding global and inno­va­tive solutions.

Backed by Alpha Private Equity since 2013, the manage­ment team selec­ted Naxi­cap Part­ners for the next phase of growth, supported by a unitran­che faci­lity provi­ded by Ardian. “With ECS’ clear ambi­tion of selec­tively pene­t­ra­ting and rein­for­cing its posi­ti­ons in key areas of its alre­ady broad network, the Unitran­che alter­na­tive stood out as a compel­ling solu­tion to acce­le­rate the Company’s growth in the next few years” commen­ted Grégory Pernot, Direc­tor of Private Debt at Ardian France.

Angèle Faugier, Part­ner at Naxi­cap Part­ners, added: “ECS has demons­tra­ted an amazing growth trajec­tory under the leader­ship of Bert­rand Schmoll and Adrien Thomi­net who have succee­ded in both deve­lo­ping and struc­tu­ring the Group around solid funda­men­tals (high-quality client port­fo­lio, an inte­gra­ted global network, effi­ci­ent local teams, premium services). We are convin­ced that the Group has what it takes to estab­lish itself as the major conso­li­da­tion plat­form in the market and to be a driving force for inno­va­tion in the cargo indus­try. We want to provide its manage­ment team with the means to put their ambi­tious deve­lo­p­ment plans into action, and are convin­ced that the exper­tise of Ardian, through this unitran­che finan­cing, which grants us flexi­bi­lity and speed of execu­tion, will enable us to rapidly achieve our goals.”

“We are proud to have convin­ced Naxi­cap and ECS’ manage­ment team of the merits of our offer, and are deligh­ted to be a key part­ner of the Group going forward. We have been very impres­sed by the Company’s histo­ri­cal deve­lo­p­ment and by the quality and loyalty of the manage­ment team for over twenty years” said Guil­laume Chinar­det, Head of Private Debt France and Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian. “This is our 108th tran­sac­tion since the crea­tion of Ardian’s Private Debt acti­vity, reflec­ting the long­stan­ding track-record of the team since 2005, as well as our capa­city to under­write unitran­che tran­sac­tions of signi­fi­cant size.”

Abaout ARDIAN
Ardian is a world-leading private invest­ment house with assets of US$71bn mana­ged or advi­sed in Europe, North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees. It keeps entre­pre­neur­ship at its heart and focu­ses on deli­ve­ring excel­lent invest­ment perfor­mance to its global inves­tor base. Through its commit­ment to shared outco­mes for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties fuel indi­vi­dual, corpo­rate and econo­mic growth around the world.

Holding close its core values of excel­lence, loyalty and entre­pre­neur­ship, Ardian main­ta­ins a truly global network, with more than 500 employees working from thir­teen offices across Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), North America (New York, San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Singa­pore, Tokyo). It mana­ges funds on behalf of 700 clients through five pillars of invest­ment exper­tise: Private Debt, Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infra­struc­ture and Real Estate.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in Karl Eugen Fischer GmbH (KEF), the world’s leading company for the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of cutting systems for the tire indus­try. DBAG Fund VII, advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, will acquire the majo­rity of the shares as part of a manage­ment buyout; they will be sold by funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe. DBAG will initi­ally invest up to €23.5 million for its co-invest­ment. In the target struc­ture, they will in future hold around 20 percent of the shares in the company. Further shares besi­des DBAG Fund VII will be held by the company’s manage­ment. The closing of the purchase agree­ment signed yester­day is sche­du­led for the end of this month. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The latest acqui­si­tion marks DBAG Fund VII’s fourth MBO struc­tu­red since the fund’s invest­ment period began in Decem­ber 2016. With a volume of just over one billion euros, it is the largest private equity fund initia­ted and advi­sed by a German private equity company. After four tran­sac­tions, around one third of the invest­ment commit­ments are now committed.

Tire manu­fac­tu­r­ers use the machi­nes produ­ced by KEF (www.kefischer.de) to assem­ble mainly rubber-coated steel wire and fabric layers (so-called calen­de­red cord mate­rial) for tire carcas­ses and tire belts. These layers form the support­ing struc­ture of the tire and give it shape and driving stabi­lity. They are precis­ely cut with equip­ment from KEF machi­nes. Since the deve­lo­p­ment of the first steel cord cutting line in 1970, a “Fischer line” has become a gene­ric name: Nine of the ten most successful tire manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the world now rely on the company’s machi­nes, whose global market share is around 70 percent. Produc­tion takes place at the company’s head­quar­ters in Burg­kunst­adt (Upper Fran­co­nia), where more than 500 of the total work­force of 545 are employed. There is a sales and service company in both the USA and China. In 2017, 83 million euros were turned over.

Cutting systems are crucial for a smooth produc­tion flow. KEF machi­nes are tech­no­lo­gi­cal leaders in this respect: They are charac­te­ri­zed, for exam­ple, by high precis­ion and low mate­rial losses, both important success factors. With a high level of verti­cal inte­gra­tion, KEF ensu­res that the machi­nes adapted to the respec­tive custo­mer requi­re­ments can be deli­vered in the desi­red quality and on time. The company has been working with its custo­mers for deca­des in the deve­lo­p­ment of the machi­nes and is a prefer­red supplier for quite a few tire manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Based on its outstan­ding tech­no­lo­gi­cal posi­tion, KEF is expec­ted to bene­fit from the incre­asing demand for tires and thus for corre­spon­ding produc­tion faci­li­ties. To this end, invest­ments will be made in expan­ding capa­ci­ties in the coming year, for exam­ple with the cons­truc­tion of a further assem­bly shop in Burgkunstadt.

Mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring and auto­mo­tive suppli­ers are two of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG’s four core sectors; in the past ten years alone, DBAG has inves­ted in ten compa­nies from these two sectors. “With our expe­ri­ence and focus on invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies, we are the ideal part­ner for the company,” commen­ted Dr. Rolf Schef­fels, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board, on the tran­sac­tion. “We see further poten­tial for Karl Eugen Fischer in view of the tire manu­fac­tu­r­ers’ invest­ment plans and market deve­lo­p­ments,” Dr. Schef­fels added.

“Our company has bene­fi­ted from the support of private equity funds since the foun­ding family sold the company more than ten years ago — they have supported our busi­ness,” explains Simone Thies. The commer­cial direc­tor points to the average annual growth of five percent in sales and the number of employees since 2005. He added: “We are sure that with DBAG we will also be able to exploit the oppor­tu­ni­ties that lie not only in market growth, but also in further expan­sion of the service busi­ness in view of the large number of turbi­nes installed.”

Advi­sor DBAG: Gleiss Lutz
DBAG’s compli­ance advice was provi­ded by a Gleiss Lutz team led by Dr. Eike Bicker (lead, part­ner) and inclu­ding the follo­wing lawy­ers: Marina Stoklasa, Domingo de Prada, Dr. Chris­toph Skou­pil (all compli­ance, Frank­furt), Dr. Moritz Holm-Hadulla (part­ner), Dr. Domi­nik Braun, Dr. Vanessa Gehle (all anti­trust, Stuttgart).
At Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, Mr. Florian Döring (Gene­ral Coun­sel) advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion and coor­di­na­ted the process.

Gleiss Lutz regu­larly advi­ses DBAG and other inter­na­tio­nal and natio­nal private equity inves­tors on invest­ments in promi­sing compa­nies, inclu­ding in the area of venture capital.

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG is a listed private equity company. We initiate closed-end private equity funds: DBAG funds enable insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to invest in the equity or equity-like instru­ments of unlis­ted compa­nies. DBAG advi­ses and mana­ges these funds. In other words, it seeks out, exami­nes and struc­tures oppor­tu­ni­ties for parti­ci­pa­tion. We nego­tiate invest­ment agree­ments, accom­pany the port­fo­lio compa­nies during the invest­ment period and design the dive­st­ment process. We co-invest along­side these DBAG funds with funds from our own balance sheet. A DBAG share thus provi­des access to a port­fo­lio of unlis­ted compa­nies and, at the same time, to a successful fund advi­sory business.

Our focus is on medium-sized compa­nies. Their busi­ness models and markets are what we have been deal­ing with for decades.

News

Merzig/ Tutt­lin­gen — The previous sole share­hol­der of DEUBA GmbH & Co KG from Merzig has sold 60 percent of its shares to Rieker Invest­ment GmbH from Tutt­lin­gen. Taylor Wessing, led by Düssel­dorf M&A part­ner Ernst-Albrecht von Beau­vais, provi­ded legal advice for the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The company DEUBA was foun­ded in 2002 as a pure online distri­bu­tor. At that time, online retail was still in its infancy. Today, the company is one of Germany’s largest online retail­ers, with over 100,000 square meters of warehouse space, a product port­fo­lio of more than 2,000 items and more than 1,000,000 custo­mers per year. The range includes, for exam­ple, garden and leisure artic­les, toys, sports equip­ment and furniture.

The new majo­rity share­hol­der Rieker Invest­ment is part of the Rieker Finance Group, which is backed by the Rieker family of entre­pre­neurs with the shoe brand of the same name. It focu­ses on long-term invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of sectors.

Legal Advi­sors Share­hol­ders of DEUBA GmbH & Co. KG
Taylor Wessing: Lead Part­ner Dr. Ernst-Albrecht v. Beau­vais (Part­ner, M&A, Düssel­dorf), Patri­que Willems (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A), Dr. Simon Wepp­ner (Part­ner, Tax), Dr. Joachim Mandl (Salary Part­ner, Real Estate) (all Düsseldorf)

WICORA Attor­neys at Law: Dr. Diet­mar Benne

Legal advi­sors Rieker Invest­ment GmbH:

Lawy­ers Oppen­län­der (Stutt­gart): Dr. Felix Born, Dr. Teresa Bopp, Dr. Hannes Dreher, Dr. Ulrich Klumpp, Dr. Daniel Schil­ler­wein, Dr. Chris­tian Gunßer.
Ebner Stolz Attor­neys at Law (Stutt­gart): Volker Schmidt, Armand von Alberti

News

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, the Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in “buy to build”, sells Ipes, a leading Euro­pean provi­der of outsour­cing services in the private equity sector, to the Apex Group Ltd. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to result in a signi­fi­cant gain for Silver­fleet. multi­ple of 3.8x and an inter­nal rate of return (IRR) of 30 percent.

Ipes, head­quar­te­red in Guern­sey, was foun­ded in 1998 and has been a pioneer in the Euro­pean private equity market, signi­fi­cantly advan­cing fund admi­nis­tra­tion. With 265 employees in five Euro­pean offices, the company serves 195 custo­mers. The team acts as mana­ger and custo­dian for assets tota­ling $165 billion across 390 funds. Ipes has recor­ded a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 13 percent in its sales over the past ten years. This strong orga­nic growth is based on a deep under­stan­ding of the incre­asing demands on invest­ment mana­gers — for exam­ple in the areas of regu­la­tion and accoun­ting as well as from inves­tors — and the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive services for clients’ busi­ness success.

Silver­fleet had inves­ted in Ipes in August 2013 to help deve­lop the company into one of the leading outsour­cing provi­ders in the private equity market. Crucial to the invest­ment was the assump­tion that private equity funds, in an envi­ron­ment incre­asingly regu­la­ted by rules and stan­dards such as AIFMD, FATCA and CRS, are incre­asingly outsour­cing their manage­ment tasks to specia­li­zed provi­ders. During the period of Silverfleet’s invol­vement, Ipes was able to signi­fi­cantly expand its presence across Europe and more than double the number of its custo­mers and employees.

“Ipes’ perfor­mance over the past five years has been impres­sive,” said Mark Pias­e­cki, part­ner at Silver­fleet Capi­tal respon­si­ble for the finan­cial services sector. “We are plea­sed to have been able to support manage­ment in the successful execu­tion of its orga­nic growth plan and that Ipes has been able to make important invest­ments. This includes new, inno­va­tive service offe­rings such as Depo­si­tary, but also further streng­thening the indus­try-leading proprie­tary tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons Capi­tal Tracker and ID Regis­ter. We wish Chris Merry and the team a great working rela­ti­onship with Apex.”

Chris Merry, CEO of Ipes, adds: “I would like to thank the Silver­fleet team for their support and exper­tise. Toge­ther, we have succee­ded in further expan­ding Ipes’ client base, adding inno­va­tive, tech­no­logy-driven offe­rings to the service port­fo­lio and gene­ra­ting strong orga­nic growth. We were thus able to cement our market posi­tio­ning as one of the leading outsour­cing provi­ders for private equity in Europe. We look forward to the next phase of Ipes’ deve­lo­p­ment — buil­ding on Apex’s impres­sive track record and scale, we intend to conti­nue working on our strong custo­mer focus.”

Silver­fleet Capi­tal has a long track record of inves­t­ing in busi­ness and finan­cial services, start­ing with finan­cing the buyout of global manage­ment, finance and admi­nis­tra­tion services provi­der TMF from SNS Reaal in 2004. In Janu­ary of the current year, Silver­fleet sold CCC, one of the leading busi­ness process outsour­cing service provi­ders in Europe, to Ardian. Silverfleet’s current invest­ments include Life­time Trai­ning, one of the UK’s leading trai­ning provi­ders. The sale of Ipes is another successful exit for Silver­fleet in this sector.

Advi­sors Silver­fleet: On the sale of Ipes, Silver­fleet Capi­tal was advi­sed by Roth­schild (Corpo­rate Finance), PWC (Finan­cial & Tax), Duff & Phelps (Compli­ance) and Travers Smith (Legal).

News

Munich — Munich-based FinTech company IDnow recei­ves new capi­tal in the signi­fi­cant milli­ons, conclu­ding a stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion with Giesecke+Devrient Ventures. This brings IDnow GmbH’s total finan­cing to over 10 million euros. In addi­tion, Giesecke+Devrient Mobile Secu­rity and IDnow are combi­ning their exper­tise and resour­ces to jointly deve­lop AI-powered biome­trics and secu­rity tech­no­lo­gies and provide global solu­ti­ons for secure digi­tal identification.

IDnow offers an Iden­tity-as-a-Service plat­form based on the world’s most advan­ced Deep Lear­ning tech­no­logy, through which the iden­ti­ties of more than 6.3 billion people from 115 diffe­rent count­ries can be veri­fied in real time. Its patent-protec­ted video iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and eSig­ning solu­ti­ons help custo­mers save money, improve custo­mer acqui­si­tion conver­sion rates and stream­line the onboar­ding process. IDnow was awarded the “Most Successful Fintech” award in 2017.

Giesecke+Devrient is a global secu­rity tech­no­logy group head­quar­te­red in Munich. G+D deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products and solu­ti­ons for payment, connec­ti­vity, iden­tity manage­ment and digi­tal secu­rity. The Group’s custo­mers include central banks and commer­cial banks, mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons provi­ders, corpo­ra­ti­ons, and govern­ments and public autho­ri­ties. In fiscal 2017, the company gene­ra­ted sales of 2.14 billion.

Advi­sor IDnow: P+P
Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Berlin/Munich)
Dr. Georg Seitz (Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich)

News

Stutt­gart — Stutt­gart-based inves­tor FOSTEC Ventures is selling its stake in factor‑a to digi­tal agency Dept. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the transaction.

The digi­tal agency Dept acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in factor‑a. The specia­list for market­place tech­no­logy and brand manage­ment on Amazon supports manu­fac­tu­r­ers and brands in presen­ting them­sel­ves opti­mally on Amazon and incre­asing their sales. Mana­ging direc­tors Marc Aufzug and Domi­nik Bors reco­gni­zed early on that brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers who want to sell their products on Amazon need support in doing so. Since 2016, they have deve­lo­ped a range of services for this under the umbrella of factor‑a: Product Data Manage­ment, Search Marke­ting Campaigns, Amazon Adver­ti­sing and Vendor Sales Excel­lence. A proprie­tary soft­ware solu­tion, the factor‑a suite, rounds off the offering.

Factor‑a was supported in the deve­lo­p­ment of the agency by co-part­ner and co-initia­tor of the company, Markus Fost (photo). His invest­ment company FOSTEC Ventures, which also includes the stra­tegy consul­ting boutique FOSTEC & Company, accom­pa­nied the deve­lo­p­ment of factor‑a’s busi­ness model. Today, the agency is the leading specia­list for market­place tech­no­logy and brand manage­ment on Amazon in Germany and works with the largest budget for Amazon Marke­ting Services from clients in Europe. factor‑a Mana­ging Direc­tor Marc Aufzug: “The coope­ra­tion with FOSTEC Ventures on our entry into factor‑a was excel­lent. We were able to dock on easily, both as entre­pre­neurs and as mana­ging direc­tors. The team around Markus Fost supported us with their stra­te­gic exper­tise, which helped us to quickly deve­lop a successful service and product port­fo­lio with factor‑a, with which we were able to convince leading brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers in a very short time. That made it very easy for us to get star­ted.” Toge­ther with co-mana­ging direc­tor Domi­nik Bors, he led factor‑a to an eight-figure company valua­tion on the market.

“That’s what every foun­der wants,” says Markus Fost, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of FOSTEC Ventures. He adds, “We see oursel­ves as an entre­pre­neur-inves­tor that not only provi­des finan­cing, but also supports smart foun­ders with promi­sing digi­tal ideas with know-how and market access.”

About Fostec Ventures
FOSTEC Ventures is a private equity firm that focu­ses on start-ups and SMEs in Europe as a company buil­der. We operate across indus­tries with a parti­cu­lar affi­nity for the digi­tal economy. As “entre­pre­neur-inves­tors”, we not only provide the finan­cing, but also actively contri­bute our many years of expe­ri­ence as entre­pre­neurs and mana­ging direc­tors. Ther­e­fore, for us, the invest­ment of capi­tal is only the begin­ning of a syste­ma­tic and part­ner­ship-based further deve­lo­p­ment for the long-term success of the company. We are your access to entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise & capital!

News

Stutt­gart — Stutt­gart-based inves­tor FOSTEC Ventures is selling its stake in factor‑a to digi­tal agency Dept. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the transaction.

The digi­tal agency Dept acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in factor‑a. The specia­list for market­place tech­no­logy and brand manage­ment on Amazon supports manu­fac­tu­r­ers and brands in presen­ting them­sel­ves opti­mally on Amazon and incre­asing their sales. Mana­ging direc­tors Marc Aufzug and Domi­nik Bors reco­gni­zed early on that brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers who want to sell their products on Amazon need support in doing so. Since 2016, they have deve­lo­ped a range of services for this under the umbrella of factor‑a: Product Data Manage­ment, Search Marke­ting Campaigns, Amazon Adver­ti­sing and Vendor Sales Excel­lence. A proprie­tary soft­ware solu­tion, the factor‑a suite, rounds off the offering.

Support­ing factor‑a in the deve­lo­p­ment of the agency was co-part­ner and co-initia­tor of the company, Markus Fost (Fost). His invest­ment company FOSTEC Ventures, which also includes the stra­tegy consul­ting boutique FOSTEC & Company, accom­pa­nied the deve­lo­p­ment of factor‑a’s busi­ness model. Today, the agency is the leading specia­list for market­place tech­no­logy and brand manage­ment on Amazon in Germany and works with the largest budget for Amazon Marke­ting Services from clients in Europe.

factor‑a Mana­ging Direc­tor Marc Aufzug: “The coope­ra­tion with FOSTEC Ventures on our entry into factor‑a was excel­lent. We were able to dock on easily, both as entre­pre­neurs and as mana­ging direc­tors. The team around Markus Fost supported us with their stra­te­gic exper­tise, which helped us to quickly deve­lop a successful service and product port­fo­lio with factor‑a, with which we were able to convince leading brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers in a very short time. This made it very easy for us to get star­ted.” Toge­ther with co-mana­ging direc­tor Domi­nik Bors, he led factor‑a to an eight-figure company valua­tion on the market.

“That’s what every foun­der wants,” says Markus Fost, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of FOSTEC Ventures. He adds, “We see oursel­ves as an entre­pre­neur-inves­tor that not only provi­des finan­cing, but also supports smart foun­ders with promi­sing digi­tal ideas with know-how and market access.”

About FOSTEC Ventures
FOSTEC Ventures is a private equity firm that focu­ses on start-ups and SMEs in Europe as a company buil­der. We operate across indus­tries with a parti­cu­lar affi­nity for the digi­tal economy. As “entre­pre­neur-inves­tors”, we not only provide the finan­cing, but also actively contri­bute our many years of expe­ri­ence as entre­pre­neurs and mana­ging direc­tors. Ther­e­fore, for us, the invest­ment of capi­tal is only the begin­ning of a syste­ma­tic and part­ner­ship-based further deve­lo­p­ment for the long-term success of the company. We are your access to entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise & capital!

News

Berlin — Clemens Waitz and Simon Pfef­ferle of Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed Dash­dash, a start-up that deve­lops tools to make programming suita­ble for the masses, on a USD 8 million Series A finan­cing round. The round was led by promi­nent US VCAccel Part­ners. The Berlin-based funds Cherry Ventures and Atlan­tic Labs also parti­ci­pa­ted, as did angel inves­tors inclu­ding Felix Jahn, foun­der of Home24, and David Schnei­der, co-foun­der of Zalando. Cherry Ventures, Jahn and Atlan­tic Labs had alre­ady been invol­ved in the company since a pre-seed finan­cing from last year. Dash­dash plans to use the million-dollar funding for product development.

Advi­sors to Dasdash: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner), Dr. Simon Pfef­ferle (Asso­ciate)

About Vogel Heerma Waitz
Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media that has been opera­ting since May 2014 and can draw on a total of over 40 years of expe­ri­ence of its part­ners and staff in connec­tion with growth capi­tal financings.

News

Pforzheim/ Frank­furt — Halder Betei­li­gungs­be­ra­tung GmbH has ente­red into an agree­ment to sell Klin­gel medi­cal metal, Pforz­heim, to IK Invest­ment Part­ners. Klin­gel has been a Halder invest­ment since 2012, and the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

Klin­gel medi­cal metal was foun­ded in 1986 and manu­fac­tures complex precis­ion parts from diffi­cult-to-machine mate­ri­als such as stain­less steel and tita­nium. In 2012, sales amoun­ted to €23.6 million, of which around 50% was attri­bu­ta­ble to custo­mers in the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector. Since then, Klin­gel has deve­lo­ped into a successful supplier for medi­cal tech­no­logy by focu­sing its busi­ness model, compre­hen­sive rebran­ding and inten­sive market deve­lo­p­ment. The new stra­te­gic alignment was supported by invest­ments of around €15 million for capa­city expan­sion and the exten­sion of the value chain to include proto­type produc­tion, highly auto­ma­ted clea­ning and elec­tro­po­li­shing. By the end of 2017, busi­ness volume had increased by around 55% to €36.5 million as a result of orga­nic growth and the acqui­si­tion of Josef Ganter Fein­me­cha­nik in 2016. In paral­lel, the share of sales accoun­ted for by medi­cal tech­no­logy increased to around 70%. The number of employees increased from around 200 to over 300 in the same period.

Parties invol­ved Halder
Halder: Michael Wahl, Chris­tian Muschalik
Seller finan­cial advi­sor: William Blair (Phil­ipp Mohr, Moritz Rottwinkel)
Seller legal advi­sor: Graf von West­fa­len (Lutz Zimmer, Ernst Lindl)

About Halder
Halder has been active as an equity inves­tor in Germany since 1991 and has provi­ded equity capi­tal for succes­sion and growth to 38 medium-sized compa­nies. The sale of Klin­gel is the second exit from the port­fo­lio of the Halder Germany II fund. Halder’s invest­ments gene­rally realize growth through inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, focu­sing of stra­tegy and busi­ness model, exten­sive invest­ments mainly in capa­city expan­sion and stra­te­gic acquisitions.

Parties invol­ved IK Invest­ment Partners:
IK Invest­ment Part­ners: Anders Peters­son, Mirko Jablon­sky, Alex­an­der Dokters, Adrian Tanski, Daniel-Vito Günther
Buyer finan­cial advi­sor: Quar­ton Inter­na­tio­nal (Lars Veit, Rolf Holtmann)
Buyer stra­te­gic due dili­gence: Alva­rez & Marsal (Georg Hochleitner)
Buyer finan­cial due dili­gence: Ebner Stolz (Claus Bähre)
Buyer legal advi­sor: Renzen­brink & Part­ner (Ulf Renzenbrink)

About IK Invest­ment Partners
IKInvest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic count­ries, the DACH region and France/Benelux. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of more than 9.5 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 115 Euro­pean compa­nies. The IK Funds support compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial and their manage­ment teams in deve­lo­ping busi­ness models for the future, streng­thening the compa­nies’ market posi­tion and thus crea­ting outstan­ding long-term deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. www.ikinvest.com

About KLINGEL medi­cal metal
For more than 30 years, KLINGEL medi­cal metal GmbH has been one of the leading Euro­pean compa­nies in precis­ion tech­no­logy with a stra­te­gic focus on medi­cal tech­no­logy. With more than 300 employees, KLINGEL medi­cal metal GmbH specia­li­zes in the precis­ion machi­ning of diffi­cult-to-machine mate­ri­als such as tita­nium and stain­less steel. KLINGEL offers unsur­pas­sed tech­ni­cal quality and aesthe­tic perfec­tion. www.klingel-med.de

 

 

News

Hamburg ‑HeukingKühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Viess­mann Group on the acqui­si­tion of the busi­ness of insol­vent wibut­ler GmbH in Müns­ter, a manu­fac­tu­rer of smart home solu­ti­ons. With the acqui­si­tion, Viess­mann comple­ments its offe­ring in the smart home sector. The tran­sac­tion will streng­then both the wibut­ler brand and the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion site in Müns­ter — manage­ment and jobs will be retained.

The Viess­mann Group is a manu­fac­tu­rer of energy systems. With over 12,000 employees, the family-owned company gene­ra­ted sales of 2.37 billion euros in 2017. Viess­mann offers indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons with effi­ci­ent systems and outputs from one to 120,000 kilo­watts for all appli­ca­ti­ons and all energy sources.

Foun­ded in 2012, wibut­ler GmbH employs 26 people and specia­li­zes in open-manu­fac­tu­rer smart home solu­ti­ons. The company offers a plat­form for indus­try part­ners to network diffe­rent products via an app. The crisis-ridden wibut­ler GmbH was forced to file for insol­vency at the end of Janu­ary 2018. By order dated April 1, 2018, the compe­tent insol­vency court had opened insol­vency procee­dings and orde­red self-admi­nis­tra­tion. The sale of the company took place within the frame­work of self-administration.

Advi­sors to Viess­mann Group: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Johan Schnei­der (restructuring/lead manage­ment), David Loszyn­ski (restructuring/distressed M&A), Dr. Marcus Georg Tisch­ler (restruc­tu­ring), Dr. Søren Pietz­cker, LL.M. (IP/IT), Dr. Eva Kett­ner, LL.B. (labor law), all Hamburg
Dr. Anton Horn (Patent Law), Düsseldorf

News

Frank­furt a. M. — Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed PINOVA Capi­tal on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Sauter Fed ern GmbH (“Sauter Federn”), a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of tech­ni­cal springs.

Sauter Federn, head­quar­te­red in Furt­wan­gen, Germany, has specia­li­zed in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of custo­mi­zed spring solu­ti­ons for more than 80 years.

PINOVA Capi­tal is a Munich-based, inde­pen­dent invest­ment company for equity finan­cing of fast-growing, inno­va­tive medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Shear­man & Ster­ling has regu­larly advi­sed PINOVA Capi­tal on finan­cing matters in the past, inclu­ding the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Utimaco, Human Solu­ti­ons, Deuro­wood and WEETECH.

About PINOVA Capital
PINOVA covers the entire equity spec­trum from growth capi­tal to succes­sion solu­ti­ons in the context of majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­dings. With two funds, around €300 million in finan­cingis available for corpo­rate invest­ments, provi­ded by insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with a long-term invest­ment horizon.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

 

 

News

Frank­furt a. M. — Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed PINOVA Capi­tal on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Sauter Fed ern GmbH (“Sauter Federn”), a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of tech­ni­cal springs.

Sauter Federn, head­quar­te­red in Furt­wan­gen, Germany, has specia­li­zed in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of custo­mi­zed spring solu­ti­ons for more than 80 years.

PINOVA Capi­tal is a Munich-based, inde­pen­dent invest­ment company for equity finan­cing of fast-growing, inno­va­tive medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Shear­man & Ster­ling has regu­larly advi­sed PINOVA Capi­tal on finan­cing matters in the past, inclu­ding the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Utimaco, Human Solu­ti­ons, Deuro­wood and WEETECH.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included Part­ner Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger and Tran­sac­tion Specia­list Marina Kieweg (both Germany-Finance).

About PINOVA Capital
PINOVA covers the entire equity spec­trum from growth capi­tal to succes­sion solu­ti­ons in the context of majo­rity or mino­rity share­hol­dings. With two funds, around €300 million in finan­cing is available for corpo­rate invest­ments, provi­ded by insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with a long-term invest­ment horizon.

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Hamburg — Law firm Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, advi­sed Satel­lite Solu­ti­ons World­wide Group plc — now called BigBlu Broad­band PLC — on the acqui­si­tion of Sat Inter­net Services GmbH (inclu­ding its Portu­guese subsi­diary and Italian Open­Sky S.r.l.). Share­hol­der appr­oval was requi­red for the acqui­si­tion. The tran­sac­tion will be finan­ced mainly through a GBP 12 million share place­ment on the London Stock Exch­ange and through HSBC debt secu­red in Germany.

Broad­band provi­der BigBlu Broad­band PLC has regio­nal busi­ness units in the United King­dom, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Norway and Austra­lia and custo­mers in 30 count­ries. The company was foun­ded in 2008 as Satel­lite Solu­ti­ons Worldwide.

Sat Inter­net Services GmbH, based in Neustadt am Rüben­berge, is a provi­der of satel­lite Inter­net. Italy’s Open­Sky S.r.l. offers satel­lite broad­band connec­tions to busi­nesses, govern­ment agen­cies as well as end users.

Advi­sors to BigBlu Broad­band PLC: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Stefan Duhn­krack, Photo (Lead, M&A), Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Corporate/M&A), Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax), Dr. Kai Erhardt (Finan­cing), Tim Peter­mann (Commer­cial, Due Dili­gence), Dr. Søren Pietz­cker, LL.M. (IP, Due Dili­gence), Dr. Thomas Schulz, LL.M. (labor law, due dili­gence), all Hamburg.

In addi­tion to the team led by Duhn­krack, which advi­sed on German law, the part­ner firm from the WSG network Shep­herd + Wedderb­urn in Glas­gow led the way, supported by the law firm PLMJ in Lisbon.

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